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Thomas W. Webster IV, the former Dover police officer who went to trial on charges of assaulting a suspect, was acquitted by a jury. But the official record of his arrest, which he sought to have deleted, remains part of the public record — at least for now.

A Kent County Superior Court judge has denied Webster's application to have his criminal record — the single arrest and charge stemming from the August 2013 incident — expunged by court order. While Webster can re-apply for expungement with more specific reasons why the arrest record should be wiped, his first application "provides no specific facts" to support the request, Judge William L. Witham Jr. wrote in an opinion.

Webster's 2015 trial was Delaware's highest-profile episode in which prosecutors and a grand jury — but not, in the end, a trial jury — believed Webster, a white officer, mistreated a black suspect: Lateef Dickerson, then 29, of Dover. After one grand jury declined to indict Webster, a second grand jury prosecutors presented evidence to did return an indictment.

In this image taken from footage filmed by a Dover Police dashboard camera, Dover Police Cpl. Thomas Webster IV (center) kicks Lateef Dickerson on Aug. 24, 2013, at a gas station on U.S. 13. The image was enhanced by The News Journal. It’s unclear whether two 12-member grand juries convened in the case saw the video.(Photo: PROVIDED BY DOVER POLICE)

Dashcam video of Webster striking Dickerson in the jaw with his foot was a major part of the trial. Webster's attorney, James Ligouri, argued the officer's actions were justified to take Dickerson into custody. Webster was acquitted in December 2015, and in February, the city of Dover announced an agreement with Webster, paying him $230,000 over six years to quit, but also banning him from ever seeking employment with the city again.

Under state law, people can petition Superior Court for expungements of their criminal records. The burden is on them, the law says, to note "specific facts in support of [an] allegation of manifest injustice, and the burden shall be on the petitioner to prove such manifest injustice." The Department of Justice opposed the expungement request, court records show.

Witham's opinion said Webster did not meet that burden in his application for expungement. Webster, Witham said, only stated that "the continued existence and possible dissemination of information relating to the arrest of Petitioner [Webster] causes, or may cause, circumstances which constitute a manifest injustice."

The bar for proving manifest injustice is "not high," Witham wrote, but nevertheless, Webster failed to meet it. His ruling allows Webster to re-apply with added facts and arguments.

James Liguori, Webster's attorney, said he would file a second expungement application with more details. "I'm going to do exactly what the judge allowed me to do," Liguori said.